Rudy Giuliani falsely claims on Facebook that he is a former US attorney general

Giuliani's Facebook page billed him as "Former Attorney General of the United States," a post which he never held

By Igor Derysh

Managing Editor

Published December 26, 2019 11:33AM (EST)

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani promoted a new Facebook page, which wrongly listed him as a government official and falsely claimed that he is the former attorney general of the U.S.

“Connect with me on my Facebook Page. More to come on my investigation, soon!” Giuliani wrote Tuesday on Twitter in reference to his recent trip to Ukraine where he renewed the same effort which led to President Donald Trump’s impeachment in the House of Representatives.

The Facebook page wrongly listed Giuliani as a “government official,” even though he has repeatedly said that he is a private citizen who is representing the president for free. The about section on the page falsely claimed that he is the “Former Attorney General of the United States.”

Giuliani never served as attorney general, though he did serve as an associate attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. He later became the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, the same prosecutor’s office which is now investigating his overseas dealings.

Giuliani told New York Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfeldt that the information in the bio was a “mistake.” “Should be AAG,” he said. “Will change it.”

Two hours later, the profile was changed to describe Giuliani as a “Public Figure” and “Former Associate Attorney General of the United States.”

Giuliani lost his chance to become Trump’s attorney general, former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told former special counsel Bob Mueller’s investigators. Gates said that Giuliani was Trump’s “first choice” to be the attorney general, but the former New York mayor turned it down “because he wanted to be secretary of state instead,” according to documents published by BuzzFeed News.

Though Giuliani was ultimately passed over for the job, he has claimed that the president was "very supportive" of a shadow foreign policy fact-finding mission intended to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and Trump’s conspiracy theory that Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in the 2016 election.

Giuliani recently admitted that he led an effort to oust then-Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, because he needed her “out of the way” to push for the investigations. He later told New York Magazine that he thinks Yovanovitch was “controlled” by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, echoing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory at the heart of the Ukraine efforts.

“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him,” Giuliani told the outlet. “Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is. I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue. He doesn’t support Israel. He’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He’s a horrible human being.”

Giuliani also attempted to defend himself from allegations that he sought to profit from his efforts in Ukraine.

“I have no business interests in Ukraine,” he told New York Magazine, before describing his business interests in Ukraine. “I’ve done two business deals in Ukraine. I’ve sought four or five others,” he said.

Giuliani also said that if prosecutors in his former New York office are investigating him, “they’re a**holes.”

“They’re absolutely a**holes if they’re investigating me,” he said. “If they are, they’re idiots. Then they really are a Trump-deranged bunch of silly New York liberals . . . If they think I committed a crime, they’re out of their minds. I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I know how not to commit crimes. And if they think I’ve lost my integrity, maybe they’ve lost theirs in their insanity over hating Trump with some of the things they did that I never would’ve tolerated when I was U.S. Attorney.”

Giuliani added that he thinks prosecutors are looking at him, because they’re jealous that they’ve “never done anything like me since me.”

Giuliani told the outlet that he felt betrayed by those close to him speaking to the press. He dismissed his associates’ concerns that his recent actions threaten to tarnish his legacy.

“My attitude about my legacy,” he told New York Magazine, “is F*ck it.”


By Igor Derysh

Igor Derysh is Salon's managing editor. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

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